These transcriptions of the censuses contain the following information:

Entry: the order in which the Wateringbury names appear on the census (unique for each person).

Name: full name as appearing on the census (be wary of transcription errors, both at the time and modern, name changes, changes in spellings).

Surname: last name appearing in the name (separated out to assist sorting).

Household: the order in which each household was visited (people with the same number lived in the same house).

Dwelling: Name of the house, building or street.

Relation: Head of household or relation to them (head of household is not always male, "ditto" has been replaced by relevant description, eg. "Lodger" followed by "ditto wife" has become "Lodger wife").

Sex: Male or Female (for 1851 this did not appear on the census—it has been inferred from the person's name, relation, and occasionally profession. For instance, in the clearcut entries, Frances was always female, while Francis and George were always male, so this was assumed throughout).

Status: Married, Unmarried, Widow(er).

Age: Age or approximate age (less accurate in earlier censuses, sometimes rounded to nearest 5 or 10 years. Comparing the ages given by 76 individual males who appear on both censuses, after 30 years: 27 had the expected age; 29 were plus or minus 1 year; 19 others supplied ages 2 to 5 years off; and one, William Jukes, was clearly 13 years off!).

Occupation: Occupation (sometimes with acreage and number of employees, sometimes abbreviated eg. Ag. Lab.=Agricultural Labourer, sometimes for women and children their relationship to a working male, and again "ditto" has been replaced with relevant description eg. "ditto wife" becomes "Agricultural labourer wife")

Birthplace: Village, county or country of birth (beware: occasionally seems to change!)

Part (1851 only): North or South of the parish. The census was taken in two parts.

Page (1851 only): The page on which the entry appears in the original records.

Many thanks to Dail Whiting and her husband, Mike, for the substantial amount of work they have undertaken to make the data of the 1851 census available to us. For accurate family research it is always worth checking the original census return yourself as, despite the considerable attention to detail shown, it is just not possible to avoid errors which may be in the original return or may arise from the transcription of an unclear entry.